iTunes to have BCS bowl games, one writer happy

Full length games for $2.99 on iTunes? Sign me up!

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I love football. I really do. Football is becoming, for me, more and more difficult to watch and not just because I don't get the NFL network. It's the commercials. The hordes and hordes of terrible, terrible commercials. Touchdown? Extra point? Time to go to a commercial. Kick off? You guessed it, another commercial. Some might call football a slow game with lots of breaks, but I argue there is something you could stick into that time that would be somewhat worthwhile to the viewers. Heck, I might even take a 1:30 of Cris Collinsworth instead of having to watch the same commercial for the fourth time. If you have ever heard Collinsworth do color for a game you know just how serious I am about this commercial thing.

There was some hope when the NFL announced it would be offering highlights of games on Apple's iTunes Store, but unfortunately 12 minutes of highlights didn't do much for loyalists. Well today there is a new hope, and it comes from Fox (those are eleven words I never, ever thought I would write). Fox Sports, who owns the rights to televise the majority of the Bowl Championship Series—including the Cotton Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Orange Bowl and the Sugar Bowl—will be releasing the games electronically using several different distribution methods. Including the iTunes Store.

According to the press release, full games will only cost $2.99, and while we are not sure if they are commercial-free, we are assuming they are for now. Several other packages are also going to be sold, like highlights and pre-game coverage for even less, but a whole game for $2.99 is a price I can easily swallow regardless of the DRM. It isn't exclusively through iTunes, but seeing as the other choices range from Amazon's Unbox to CinemaNow, the iTunes Store will likely be the most popular form of distribution. Now if only they were carrying the Rose Bowl (arguably, the only bowl worth watching), then we'd really be talking.